GUANTANAMO Bay is closing and Old Mr Anorak has selflessly offered to find bed and board for three and maybe four – should Svetlana not return for her trip to the immigration centre – of the Bay’s more handsome residents.

OMA is not obsessed with looks, far from it. He would often compliment the first Lady OMA on her top knot of sun-kissed skin upon which her thatch of blonde hair perched like a smug Tweety pie on a comatose Sylvester (Memoirs Vol. IX, Chapt. XXXVI).

THE vile boyfriend of evil kidnap scam mum Karen Matthews has revealed they want to start a FAMILY when she gets out of prison. Craig Meehan, who was jailed last year for having child porn images on his computer, also intends to MARRY Matthews inside.

WHEN President Barack Obama started work in the White House he noticed a piece of paper that had slipped down the back of his desk drawer. The document bore the unmistakable handwriting of the forty-third President of the United States of America.

MEMO TO SELF (ME): THINGS TO DO

1. Declare war on Geese. We need to kick the butts of geese for bringing done plane in New York. Geese are agents of evil. Dick says Saddam had geese in palaces. There¹s ya link!

FEW things are not banned from football grounds these days. The chants of old have been replaced by the steward’s shrill command “Sit down”. Anorak looks at ten things banned from our grounds, where passion is policed:

PARROTS

A PARROT was banned from Hatfield Town for imitating the referee’s whistle during a crunch match between local rivals Hatfield Town and Hertford Heath.

And now Goonies fan Obama is in power, we can, or – better yet – he can (what with him being organiser of the global community and all).

And now Obama is in power what will he say about can, hope and change? Will he combine all three into a united vision – “Hope we can change”, backed by the sign of the crossed fingers? Or should the teleprompter fail, will he demand “Change we hope can Hope can change we”?

BARACK Obama has not only acrued 100% of the American public’s backing, but the media has also bought into the dream. Who but Obama could deal with this level of expectaion that he will heel the world?

Two months after the election, young people are still calling his name, “Obama, Obama…”

TASMIN Lucia Khan is breathing life into the moribund BBC 3 schedules by breathing breathy life into the news.

With Israel no longer in esistence, the BBC is forced to look elsewhere for lead news items, and Tasmin is: a) enjoying searching for new stories in her in-tray; b) panicking; c) examining the perfect orgasm; d) auditioning for life after news.

In Melbourne, the anti-war – or are they just on the other side? – protestors march for peace in Israel and Gaza.

In Israel, Jews respond by saying that they have heard the will of the entire world and enough, already.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he realises that the world’s ills can all be laid at the feet of Israelis.

He’s been on TakeMeBack.com and having traced his ancestors to the site of a village in the Ukraine, he and his will be heading back there next Tuesday.

In Austria, local peaceniks celebrated the news of the Jews return by holding a candlelit vigil.

Says one campaigner:

“Now finally the world can be at peace. With no Israel we can all sleep easy in our beds knowing that harmony is all and peace has been achieved.”

A spokesman for the BBC issued this statement.

“The BBC welcomes the decision by the Israeli state to dismantle itself and for its peoples to return from whence they came. The BBC is now free to lead with happy news stories of swearing parrots, Her Majesty’s new winter wardrobe and the Boat Race, both preparations and aftermath.”

More thoughts from around the world:

“The end days are upon us. We have but seven days to round up all the Jews, put them in a field and bomb the hell out of planet Earth. And with no President Bush, it’s gonna be harder then ever. But if we can all unite in prayer we can.” – Evangelical Congregation of Armageddon, Wyoming.

“Hopefully now the Palestinians can create the liberal dream Yasser Arafat craved. Palestinians can look forward to shared parental leave, reducing carbon emissions, legalisation of cannabis, fostering respect for all creeds and creating a Sustainable Market in Aviation” – Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats

“Thank f**! Now we can admit that Osama bin Laden was never real and was invented by Jews as a front for an attack on Iraq, Afghanistan and – well, then it would have been Iran, Pakistan, Dubai and, had Man City defeated Spurs, Abu Dhabi” – Ayman “Hymie” al-Zawahiri

“Ich bin ein Jew” – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

“It was me. Well, and Him upstairs. But mostly it was me” – Tony Blair

Israel will be cleared in a week. Jews will all leave just as soon as Poland is made ready…

SOME doubt on the plane crash in New York’s Hudson River as the Times leads with “All 155 survive crash” and the Mail counters with the front-page screamer: “All 153 onboard escape.”

The Telegraph reports that the flight was going from New York’s La Guardia airport, to Charlotte, North Carolina. But Anorak has received news that the plane was on course for London.

Says a source:

“When the pilot got the news that plane as going to London he panicked. Last time he went there they lost his luggage and he was forced to survive for 17 hours by offering to sip opened bottles baby milk and Linctus of mothers waiting to pass through customs.”

THE Sun tells Earthlings that “ALIEN microbes living just below the Martian soil are responsible for a haze of methane around the Red Planet.”

Out goes the theory that the red planet was the cosmos’s knocking shop, a beacon for sex and debauchery.

Last week, the Sun brought news that aliens had damaged a wind turbine in Lincolnshire.

There were lights in the skies. Shapes in the skies. Aliens in command of the kind of advanced technology that would make our heads spin had piloted their state-of-the-art machine into a metal windmill.

On the aliens home planet, an investigation is endeavouring to discover if the pilot had imbibed too much space dust and the onboard satnav malfunctioned.

SUSAN Crawford, A “senior member of the Bush administration,” says inmates were tortured at Guantanamo Bay. Well, she says one was:

Saudi national, Mohammed al-Qahtani, 30, was accused of involvement in the 9/11 attack. US authorities refer to him as the “20th hijacker”.

What of his torture? Says Crawford:

“For 160 days his only contact was with the interrogators. Forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations. Standing naked in front of a female agent. Subject to strip searches. And insults to his mother and sister.”